The Beginning of Salvation

Wednesday:	The Beginning of Salvation
Story Passage:	Genesis 6-9 (especially 6:13, 6:22, 7:18-8:1, 8:21-22)
Other Passages:	Matthew 24:36-42, 1st Peter 3:18-22, Genesis 3:15, Romans 6:23, Hebrews 9:26-28, 2nd Corinthians 5:20-6:2
Objective:	Sin brings a penalty. Jesus paid our penalty so that we can be saved.
Memory Verse:	1st Corinthians 15:22, For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

Introduction: Review

Who remembers what we talked about yesterday? We talked about how Adam sinned, and now all people are sinful, and how you can't live forever, unless someone pays for that sin. What is sin? Sin is anything you do or think that displeases God. In the Bible, there's a true story about a man named Noah, who lived a long time ago.

Story: The Flood

God gave Noah a special job to do, because all the people were sinning so much. God was tired of their sin, fed up, and he decided to judge the world, and start over again with Noah and his family. The Bible says that Noah was a righteous man; he loved God very much, but his neighbors didn't!

God told Noah, build an ark – a box. He told him how big to make it, and what to make it out of. The ark was going to be a boat, because God was going to send a flood. The ark had to be really big, so it took Noah and his three sons a long time to make it. Now they didn't live by a lake, and it hadn't ever rained, so Noah looked kind of funny to his neighbors, building that great big box in his yard, out of wood. He would tell his neighbors why he was building it, but do you think they listened? They didn't care about God. When the time came to get on the ark, do you suppose any of them got on with him? Only his wife, and his sons, and their wives. Nobody else believed that a flood was really coming.

God sent all the animals, at least two of every kind (seven of some kinds), and they all got on the Ark, with Noah and his family. Then God shut the door, and it rained. And rained. And rained. Do you remember on Monday, when we learned that there was water up above the sky? Is it there today? No. There are little bits of water in the sky, called clouds, but it's not very much. Before the flood, there was a lot of water, an ocean of water, up above the sky, and now it all came raining down, for forty days. Remember how we said the land was all in one big piece. Now it broke up, and water that had been under the ground came up, in fountains, and helped the rainwater to cover the land. Even the highest mountains were flooded, and nobody that was outside the ark could live, except fish.

Transition: The Ark as a Type of Christ

The Ark saved Noah, and his family, and the animals that were with them, from the flood. The flood was God's judgment against the world, for sin, but the Ark, which God told Noah how to build, was the way that they could be saved from that judgment, and live. It's a good thing Noah believed God, and did what he said, because if he hadn't, we wouldn't be here!

The Point: Substitutionary Atonement

Yesterday, we talked about sin, and how all of us sin, and somebody has to pay for it. The only way we can live, is if somebody will save us from God's judgment, by paying for the sin. God always makes a way for us to live. The ark was the way God made for Noah and his family, and anybody else who would get on it, to live through the flood. Jesus, who paid for our sin on the cross, is the way God has made for us, so that we can live with him, in heaven, forever.

Invitation: Salvation

Now I suppose that after it started raining, some of Noah's neighbors might have decided that they wanted on the ark after all, but it was too late; God had already shut the door. There will come a day when it's too late for you to accept Jesus. Don't wait until it's too late. The Bible says that now is the time of salvation.

[Invite the children to stay after the lesson and discuss it further.]

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.